Glass - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Glass is an amorphous

Amorphous solid

In condensed matter physics, an amorphous or non-crystalline solid is a solid that lacks the long-range order characteristic of a crystal....

(non-crystal

Crystal

A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. The scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography...

line) solid material. Glasses are typically brittle

Brittle

A material is brittle if, when subjected to stress, it breaks without significant deformation . Brittle materials absorb relatively little energy prior to fracture, even those of high strength. Breaking is often accompanied by a snapping sound. Brittle materials include most ceramics and glasses ...

and optically transparent

Transparency and translucency

In the field of optics, transparency is the physical property of allowing light to pass through a material; translucency only allows light to pass through diffusely. The opposite property is opacity...

.

The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in window

Window

A window is a transparent or translucent opening in a wall or door that allows the passage of light and, if not closed or sealed, air and sound. Windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent material like float glass. Windows are held in place by frames, which...

s and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass

Soda-lime glass

Soda-lime glass, also called soda-lime-silica glass, is the most prevalent type of glass, used for windowpanes, and glass containers for beverages, food, and some commodity items...

, composed of about 75% silica

Silicon dioxide

The chemical compound silicon dioxide, also known as silica , is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula '. It has been known for its hardness since antiquity...

(SiO₂) plus Na₂O

Sodium oxide

Sodium oxide is a chemical compound with the formula Na2O. It is used in ceramics and glasses, though not in a raw form. Treatment with water affords sodium hydroxide....

, CaO

Calcium oxide

Calcium oxide , commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline crystalline solid at room temperature....

, and several minor additives. Often, the term glass is used in a restricted sense to refer to this specific use.

In science, however, the term glass is usually defined in a much wider sense, including every solid that possesses a non-crystalline (i.e., amorphous

Amorphous solid

In condensed matter physics, an amorphous or non-crystalline solid is a solid that lacks the long-range order characteristic of a crystal....

) structure and that exhibits a glass transition

Glass transition

The liquid-glass transition is the reversible transition in amorphous materials from a hard and relatively brittle state into a molten or rubber-like state. An amorphous solid that exhibits a glass transition is called a glass...

when heated towards the liquid state. In this wider sense, glasses can be made of quite different classes of materials: metallic alloys, ionic melts, aqueous solutions, molecular liquids, and polymers. For many applications (bottles

Glass Bottles

A glass bottle is a bottle created from glass. Glass bottles can vary in size considerably, but are most commonly found in sizes ranging between about 10ml and 5 liters....

, eyewear) polymer glasses (acrylic glass

Acrylic glass

Poly is a transparent thermoplastic, often used as a light or shatter-resistant alternative to glass. It is sometimes called acrylic glass. Chemically, it is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate...

, polycarbonate

Polycarbonate

PolycarbonatePhysical PropertiesDensity 1.20–1.22 g/cm3Abbe number 34.0Refractive index 1.584–1.586FlammabilityV0-V2Limiting oxygen index25–27%Water absorption – Equilibrium0.16–0.35%Water absorption – over 24 hours0.1%...

,
polyethylene terephthalate

Polyethylene terephthalate

Polyethylene terephthalate , commonly abbreviated PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P, is a thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in synthetic fibers; beverage, food and other liquid containers; thermoforming applications; and engineering resins often in combination...

) are a lighter alternative to traditional silica glasses.

Glass, as a substance, plays an essential role in science and industry. Its chemical, physical, and in particular optical properties make it suitable for applications such as flat glass

Flat glass

Flat glass, sheet glass, or plate glass is a type of glass, initially produced in plane form, commonly used for windows, glass doors, transparent walls, and windshields. For modern architectural and automotive applications, the flat glass is sometimes bent after production of the plane sheet...

, container glass

Container glass

Container glass is a type of glass for the production of glass containers, such as bottles, jars, drinkware, and bowls. Container glass stands in contrast to flat glass and fiberglass...

, optics

Optics

Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...

and optoelectronics

Optoelectronics

Optoelectronics is the study and application of electronic devices that source, detect and control light, usually considered a sub-field of photonics. In this context, light often includes invisible forms of radiation such as gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet and infrared, in addition to visible light...

material, laboratory equipment

Laboratory equipment

Laboratory equipment refers to the various tools and equipment used by scientists working in a laboratory. These include tools such as Bunsen burners, and microscopes as well as speciality equipment such as operant conditioning chambers, spectrophotometers and calorimeters...

, thermal insulator (glass wool

Glass wool

Glass wool or fiberglass insulation is an insulating material made from fiberglass, arranged into a texture similar to wool. Glass wool is produced in rolls or in slabs, with different thermal and mechanical properties....

), reinforcement materials (glass-reinforced plastic

Glass-reinforced plastic

Fiberglass , is a fiber reinforced polymer made of a plastic matrix reinforced by fine fibers of glass. It is also known as GFK ....

, glass fiber reinforced concrete

Glass fiber reinforced concrete

Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete is a type of fiber reinforced concrete. Glass fiber concretes are mainly used in exterior building façade panels and as architectural precast concrete.-Composition:...

), and glass art

Glass art

Studio glass or glass sculpture is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks. Specific approaches include working glass at room temperature cold working, stained glass, working glass in a torch flame , glass beadmaking, glass casting, glass...

(art glass

Art glass

Definitions of art glass can be as complex and contentious as definitions of what constitutes "art" and will inevitably include many refinements and exceptions...

, studio glass).

Silicate glass

Silica (the chemical compound SiO₂) is a common fundamental constituent of glass. In nature, vitrification of quartz

Quartz

Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...

occurs when lightning

Lightning

Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...

strikes sand

Sand

Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal...

, forming hollow, branching rootlike structures called fulgurite

Fulgurite

Fulgurites are natural hollow glass tubes formed in quartzose sand, or silica, or soil by lightning strikes. They are formed when lightning with a temperature of at least instantaneously melts silica on a conductive surface and fuses grains together; the fulgurite tube is the cooled product...

History

The history of creating glass can be traced back to 3500 BCE in Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

.
The term glass developed in the late Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

. It was in the Roman glass

Roman glass

Roman glass objects have been recovered across the Roman Empire in domestic, industrial and funerary contexts. Glass was used primarily for the production of vessels, although mosaic tiles and window glass were also produced. Roman glass production developed from Hellenistic technical traditions,...

making center at Trier

Trier

Trier, historically called in English Treves is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC....

, now in modern Germany, that the late-Latin term glesum originated, probably from a Germanic

Germanic languages

The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...

word for a transparent, lustrous substance.

Glass ingredients

While fused quartz

Fused quartz

Fused quartz and fused silica are types of glass containing primarily silica in amorphous form. They are manufactured using several different processes...

(primarily composed of SiO₂) is used for some special applications, it is not very common due to its high glass transition temperature of over 1200 °C

Celsius

Celsius is a scale and unit of measurement for temperature. It is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius , who developed a similar temperature scale two years before his death...

(2192 °F

Fahrenheit

Fahrenheit is the temperature scale proposed in 1724 by, and named after, the German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit . Within this scale, the freezing of water into ice is defined at 32 degrees, while the boiling point of water is defined to be 212 degrees...

). Normally, other substances are added to simplify processing. One is sodium carbonate

Sodium carbonate

Sodium carbonate , Na2CO3 is a sodium salt of carbonic acid. It most commonly occurs as a crystalline heptahydrate, which readily effloresces to form a white powder, the monohydrate. Sodium carbonate is domestically well-known for its everyday use as a water softener. It can be extracted from the...

(Na₂CO₃), which lowers the glass transition temperature. However, the soda makes the glass water soluble

Sodium silicate

Sodium silicate is the common name for a compound sodium metasilicate, Na2SiO3, also known as water glass or liquid glass. It is available in aqueous solution and in solid form and is used in cements, passive fire protection, refractories, textile and lumber processing, and automobiles...

, which is usually undesirable, so lime

Lime (mineral)

Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. It is also the name for a single mineral of the CaO composition, occurring very rarely...

(calcium oxide

Calcium oxide

Calcium oxide , commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline crystalline solid at room temperature....

(CaO), generally obtained from limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

), some magnesium oxide

Magnesium oxide

Magnesium oxide , or magnesia, is a white hygroscopic solid mineral that occurs naturally as periclase and is a source of magnesium . It has an empirical formula of and consists of a lattice of Mg2+ ions and O2– ions held together by ionic bonds...

(MgO) and aluminium oxide

Aluminium oxide

Aluminium oxide is an amphoteric oxide with the chemical formula 23. It is commonly referred to as alumina, or corundum in its crystalline form, as well as many other names, reflecting its widespread occurrence in nature and industry...

(Al₂O₃) are added to provide for a better chemical durability. The resulting glass contains about 70 to 74% silica by weight and is called a soda-lime glass

Soda-lime glass

Soda-lime glass, also called soda-lime-silica glass, is the most prevalent type of glass, used for windowpanes, and glass containers for beverages, food, and some commodity items...

. Soda-lime glasses account for about 90% of manufactured glass.

Most common glass has other ingredients added to change its properties. Lead glass

Lead glass

Lead glass is a variety of glass in which lead replaces the calcium content of a typical potash glass. Lead glass contains typically 18–40 weight% lead oxide , while modern lead crystal, historically also known as flint glass due to the original silica source, contains a minimum of 24% PbO...

or flint glass

Flint glass

Flint glass is optical glass that has relatively high refractive index and low Abbe number. Flint glasses are arbitrarily defined as having an Abbe number of 50 to 55 or less. The currently known flint glasses have refractive indices ranging between 1.45 and 2.00...

is more 'brilliant' because the increased refractive index

Refractive index

In optics the refractive index or index of refraction of a substance or medium is a measure of the speed of light in that medium. It is expressed as a ratio of the speed of light in vacuum relative to that in the considered medium....

causes noticeably more specular reflection

Specular reflection

Specular reflection is the mirror-like reflection of light from a surface, in which light from a single incoming direction is reflected into a single outgoing direction...

and increased optical dispersion

Dispersion (optics)

In optics, dispersion is the phenomenon in which the phase velocity of a wave depends on its frequency, or alternatively when the group velocity depends on the frequency.Media having such a property are termed dispersive media...

. Adding barium

Barium

Barium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in Group 2, a soft silvery metallic alkaline earth metal. Barium is never found in nature in its pure form due to its reactivity with air. Its oxide is historically known as baryta but it reacts with...

also increases the refractive index. Thorium oxide gives glass a high refractive index and low dispersion and was formerly used in producing high-quality lenses, but due to its radioactivity has been replaced by lanthanum oxide in modern eye glasses. Iron can be incorporated into glass to absorb infrared

Infrared

Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...

energy, for example in heat absorbing filters for movie projectors, while cerium(IV) oxide

Cerium(IV) oxide

Cerium oxide, also known as ceric oxide, ceria, cerium oxide or cerium dioxide, is an oxide of the rare earth metal cerium...

can be used for glass that absorbs UV

Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...

wavelengths.

Borosilicate glass

Borosilicate glass

Borosilicate glass is a type of glass with the main glass-forming constituents silica and boron oxide. Borosilicate glasses are known for having very low coefficients of thermal expansion , making them resistant to thermal shock, more so than any other common glass...

es (e.g. Pyrex

Pyrex

Pyrex is a brand name for glassware, introduced by Corning Incorporated in 1915.Originally, Pyrex was made from borosilicate glass. In the 1940s the composition was changed for some products to tempered soda-lime glass, which is the most common form of glass used in glass bakeware in the US and has...

) have as main constituents silica and boron oxide. They have very low coefficients of thermal expansion (7740 Pyrex COE is 32.5/°C as compared to 8.36/°C for one type of soda-lime glass), making them more dimensionally stable. The lower COE also makes them less subject to stress caused by thermal expansion

Thermal expansion

Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change in volume in response to a change in temperature.When a substance is heated, its particles begin moving more and thus usually maintain a greater average separation. Materials which contract with increasing temperature are rare; this effect is...

, thus less vulnerable to cracking from thermal shock

Thermal shock

Thermal shock is the name given to cracking as a result of rapid temperature change. Glass and ceramic objects are particularly vulnerable to this form of failure, due to their low toughness, low thermal conductivity, and high thermal expansion coefficients...

. They are commonly used for reagent bottles, optical components and household cookware.

Another common glass ingredient is "cullet" (recycled glass

Glass recycling

Glass recycling is the process of turning waste glass into usable products. Glass waste should be separated by chemical composition, and then, depending on the end use and local processing capabilities, might also have to be separated into different colors. Many recyclers collect different colors...

). The recycled glass saves on raw materials and energy; however, impurities in the cullet can lead to product and equipment failure.

Fining agents such as sodium sulfate

Sodium sulfate

Sodium sulfate is the sodium salt of sulfuric acid. When anhydrous, it is a white crystalline solid of formula Na2SO4 known as the mineral thenardite; the decahydrate Na2SO4·10H2O has been known as Glauber's salt or, historically, sal mirabilis since the 17th century. Another solid is the...

, sodium chloride

Sodium chloride

Sodium chloride, also known as salt, common salt, table salt or halite, is an inorganic compound with the formula NaCl. Sodium chloride is the salt most responsible for the salinity of the ocean and of the extracellular fluid of many multicellular organisms...

, or antimony oxide

Antimony trioxide

Antimony trioxide is the inorganic compound with the formula Sb2O3. It is the most important commercial compound of antimony. It is found in nature as the minerals valentinite and senarmontite...

may be added to reduce the number of air bubbles in the glass mixture. Glass batch calculation

Glass batch calculation

Glass batch calculation or glass batching is used to determine the correct mix of raw materials for a glass melt.-Principle:The raw materials mixture for glass melting is termed "batch"...

is the method by which the correct raw material mixture is determined to achieve the desired glass composition.

Contemporary glass production

Following the glass batch preparation and mixing, the raw materials are transported to the furnace. Soda-lime glass

Soda-lime glass

Soda-lime glass, also called soda-lime-silica glass, is the most prevalent type of glass, used for windowpanes, and glass containers for beverages, food, and some commodity items...

for mass production

Mass production

Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...

is melted in gas fired units. Smaller scale furnaces for specialty glasses include electric melters, pot furnaces, and day tanks.

After melting, homogenization and refining (removal of bubbles), the glass is formed. Flat glass for windows and similar applications is formed by the float glass

Float glass

Float glass is a sheet of glass made by floating molten glass on a bed of molten metal, typically tin, although lead and various low melting point alloys were used in the past. This method gives the sheet uniform thickness and very flat surfaces. Modern windows are made from float glass...

process, developed between 1953 and 1957 by Sir Alastair Pilkington

Alastair Pilkington

Lionel Alexander Bethune Pilkington, and his associate Kenneth Bickerstaff, both of Great Britain, developed the world's first commercially successful manufacture of high quality flat glass using their float glass process...

and Kenneth Bickerstaff of the UK's Pilkington Brothers, who created a continuous ribbon of glass using a molten tin bath on which the molten glass flows unhindered under the influence of gravity. The top surface of the glass is subjected to nitrogen under pressure to obtain a polished finish.
Container glass for common bottles and jars is formed by blowing and pressing methods. Further glass forming techniques are summarized in the table Glass forming techniques.

Once the desired form is obtained, glass is usually annealed

Annealing (glass)

Annealing is a process of slowly cooling glass to relieve internal stresses after it was formed. The process may be carried out in a temperature-controlled kiln known as a Lehr. Glass which has not been annealed is liable to crack or shatter when subjected to a relatively small temperature change...

for the removal of stresses.
Surface treatments, coatings or lamination may follow to improve the chemical durability (glass container coatings, glass container internal treatment), strength (toughened glass

Toughened glass

Toughened or tempered glass is a type of safety glass processed by controlled thermal or chemical treatments to increase its strength compared with normal glass. Tempering creates balanced internal stresses which cause the glass, when broken, to crumble into small granular chunks instead of...

, bulletproof glass

Bulletproof glass

Bulletproof glass is a type of strong but optically transparent material that is particularly resistant to being penetrated when struck by bullets, but is not completely impenetrable. It is usually made from a combination of two or more types of glass, one hard and one soft...

, windshield

Windshield

The windshield or windscreen of an aircraft, car, bus, motorbike or tram is the front window. Modern windshields are generally made of laminated safety glass, a type of treated glass, which consists of two curved sheets of glass with a plastic layer laminated between them for safety, and are glued...

s), or optical properties (insulated glazing

Insulated glazing

Insulated glazing also known as double glazing are double or triple glass window panes separated by an air or other gas filled space to reduce heat transfer across a part of the building envelope....

, anti-reflective coating

Anti-reflective coating

An antireflective or anti-reflection coating is a type of optical coating applied to the surface of lenses and other optical devices to reduce reflection. This improves the efficiency of the system since less light is lost. In complex systems such as a telescope, the reduction in reflections also...

Architecture

The use of glass in buildings is a transparent feature to allow light to enter into rooms and floors, illuminating enclosed spaces and framing an exterior view through a window

Window

. It is also a material for internal partitions and external cladding

Cladding (construction)

Cladding is the application of one material over another to provide a skin or layer intended to control the infiltration of weather elements, or for aesthetic purposes....

Glassmaking in the laboratory

New chemical glass compositions or new treatment techniques can be initially investigated in small-scale laboratory experiments. The raw materials for laboratory-scale glass melts are often different from those used in mass production because the cost factor has a low priority. In the laboratory mostly pure chemicals are used. Care must be taken that the raw materials have not reacted with moisture or other chemicals in the environment (such as alkali

Alkali metal

The alkali metals are a series of chemical elements in the periodic table. In the modern IUPAC nomenclature, the alkali metals comprise the group 1 elements, along with hydrogen. The alkali metals are lithium , sodium , potassium , rubidium , caesium , and francium...

oxides and hydroxides, alkaline earth

Alkaline earth metal

The alkaline earth metals are a group in the periodic table. In the modern IUPAC nomenclature, the alkaline earth metals are called the group 2 elements. Previously, they were called the Group IIA elements . The alkaline earth metals contain beryllium , magnesium , calcium , strontium , barium and...

oxides and hydroxides, or boron oxide

Boron trioxide

Boron trioxide is one of the oxides of boron. It is a white, glassy solid with the formula B2O3. It is almost always found as the vitreous form; however, it can be crystallized after extensive annealing...

), or that the impurities are quantified (loss on ignition). Evaporation losses during glass melting should be considered during the selection of the raw materials, e.g., sodium selenite

Sodium selenite

Sodium selenite is a salt, a colourless solid, and the most common water-soluble selenium compound. It has the formulas Na2SeO3 and Na2SeO35 . Respectively, these are the anhydrous salt and its pentahydrate. This hydrated salt is the more common one...

may be preferred over easily evaporating SeO₂

Selenium dioxide

Selenium dioxide is the chemical compound with the formula SeO2. This colorless solid is one of the most frequently encountered compounds of selenium.-Properties:...

. Also, more readily reacting raw materials may be preferred over relatively inert

Inert

-Chemistry:In chemistry, the term inert is used to describe a substance that is not chemically reactive.The noble gases were previously known as inert gases because of their perceived lack of participation in any chemical reactions...

ones, such as Al(OH)₃

Aluminium hydroxide

Aluminium hydroxide, Al3, ATH, sometimes erroneously called Hydrate of alumina, is found in nature as the mineral gibbsite and its three, much more rare forms, polymorphs: bayerite, doyleite and nordstrandite. Closely related are aluminium oxide hydroxide, AlO, and aluminium oxide, Al2O3,...

over Al₂O₃

Aluminium oxide

. Usually, the melts are carried out in platinum crucibles to reduce contamination from the crucible material. Glass homogeneity

Homogeneous (chemistry)

A substance that is uniform in composition is a definition of homogeneous. This is in contrast to a substance that is heterogeneous.The definition of homogeneous strongly depends on the context used. In Chemistry, a homogeneous suspension of material means that when dividing the volume in half, the...

is achieved by homogenizing the raw materials mixture (glass batch), by stirring the melt, and by crushing and re-melting the first melt. The obtained glass is usually annealed

Annealing (glass)

to prevent breakage during processing.

In order to make glass from materials with poor glass forming tendencies, novel techniques are used to increase cooling rate, or reduce crystal nucleation triggers. Examples of these techniques include aerodynamic levitation

Aerodynamic levitation

Aerodynamic levitation is the use of gas pressure to levitate materials so that they are no longer in physical contact with any container. In scientific experiments this removes contamination and nucleation issues associated with physical contact with a container.-Overview:The term aerodynamic...

(cooling the melt whilst it floats on a gas stream), splat quenching (pressing the melt between two metal anvils) and roller quenching (pouring the melt through rollers).

See also: Optical lens design, Fabrication and testing of optical components

Network glasses

Some glasses that do not include silica as a major constituent may have physico-chemical properties useful for their application in fibre optics and other specialized technical applications. These include fluoride glass

Fluoride glass

Fluoride glass is a class of non-oxide optical glasses composed of fluorides of various metals. Due to their low viscosity, it is very difficult to completely avoid the occurrence of any crystallization while processing it through the glass transition...

es, aluminosilicate

Aluminosilicate

Aluminosilicate minerals are minerals composed of aluminium, silicon, and oxygen, plus countercations. They are a major component of kaolin and other clay minerals....

s, phosphate glass

Phosphate glass

Phosphate glass is a class of optical glasses composed of metaphosphates of various metals. Instead of SiO2 in silicate glasses, the glass forming substrate is P2O5....

es, borate glasses, and chalcogenide glass

Chalcogenide glass

A chalcogenide glass is a glass containing one or more chalcogenide elements. These are Group 16 in the periodic table e.g. sulfur, selenium or tellurium. Such glasses are covalently bonded materials and may be classified as network solids. In effect, the entire glass matrix acts like an...

es.

There are three classes of components for oxide glasses: network formers, intermediates, and modifiers. The network formers (silicon, boron, germanium) form a highly cross-linked network of chemical bonds. The intermediates (titanium, aluminium, zirconium, beryllium, magnesium, zinc) can act as both network formers and modifiers, according to the glass composition. The modifiers (calcium, lead, lithium, sodium, potassium) alter the network structure; they are usually present as ions, compensated by nearby non-bridging oxygen atoms, bound by one covalent bond to the glass network and holding one negative charge to compensate for the positive ion nearby. Some elements can play multiple roles; e.g. lead can act both as a network former (Pb⁴⁺ replacing Si⁴⁺), or as a modifier.

The presence of non-bridging oxygens lowers the relative number of strong bonds in the material and disrupts the network, decreasing the viscosity

Viscosity

Viscosity is a measure of the resistance of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear or tensile stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness" or "internal friction". Thus, water is "thin", having a lower viscosity, while honey is "thick", having a higher viscosity...

of the melt and lowering the melting temperature.

The alkali metal ions are small and mobile; their presence in glass allows a degree of electrical conductivity, especially in molten state or at high temperature. Their mobility, however, decreases the chemical resistance of the glass, allowing leaching by water and facilitating corrosion. Alkaline earth ions, with their two positive charges and requirement for two non-bridging oxygen ions to compensate for their charge, are much less mobile themselves and also hinder diffusion of other ions, especially the alkalis. The most common commercial glasses contain both alkali and alkaline earth ions (usually sodium and calcium), for easier processing and satisfying corrosion resistance. Corrosion resistance of glass can be achieved by dealkalization

Dealkalization

Dealkalization is a process of surface modification applicable to glasses containing alkali ions, wherein a thin surface layer is created that has a lower concentration of alkali ions than is present in the underlying, bulk glass...

, removal of the alkali ions from the glass surface by reaction with e.g. sulfur or fluorine compounds. Presence of alkaline metal ions has also detrimental effect to the loss tangent

Loss tangent

The loss tangent is a parameter of a dielectric material that quantifies its inherent dissipation of electromagnetic energy. The term refers to the tangent of the angle in a complex plane between the resistive component of an electromagnetic field and its reactive component.-Electromagnetic...

of the glass, and to its electrical resistance

Electrical resistance

The electrical resistance of an electrical element is the opposition to the passage of an electric current through that element; the inverse quantity is electrical conductance, the ease at which an electric current passes. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels with the mechanical...

; glasses for electronics (sealing, vacuum tubes, lamps...) have to take this in account.

Addition of lead(II) oxide

Lead(II) oxide

Lead oxide is the inorganic compound with the formula PbO. Lead oxide occurs in two polymorphs, red, having a tetragonal crystal structure and yellow, having an orthorhombic crystal structure...

lowers melting point, lowers viscosity

Viscosity

of the melt, and increases refractive index

Refractive index

. Lead oxide also facilitates solubility of other metal oxides and therefore is used in colored glasses. The viscosity decrease of lead glass melt is very significant (roughly 100 times in comparison with soda glasses); this allows easier removal of bubbles and working at lower temperatures, hence its frequent use as an additive in vitreous enamel

Vitreous enamel

Vitreous enamel, also porcelain enamel in U.S. English, is a material made by fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing, usually between 750 and 850 °C...

s and glass solders. The high ionic radius

Ionic radius

Ionic radius, rion, is the radius of an atom's ion. Although neither atoms nor ions have sharp boundaries, it is important to treat them as if they are hard spheres with radii such that the sum of ionic radii of the cation and anion gives the distance between the ions in a crystal lattice...

of the Pb²⁺ ion renders it highly immobile in the matrix and hinders the movement of other ions; lead glasses therefore have high electrical resistance, about two orders of magnitude higher than soda-lime glass (10^8.5 vs 10^6.5 Ohm·cm, DC

Direct current

Direct current is the unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow through...

at 250 °C). For more details, see lead glass

Lead glass

.

Addition of fluorine

Fluorine

Fluorine is the chemical element with atomic number 9, represented by the symbol F. It is the lightest element of the halogen column of the periodic table and has a single stable isotope, fluorine-19. At standard pressure and temperature, fluorine is a pale yellow gas composed of diatomic...

lowers the dielectric constant

Dielectric constant

The relative permittivity of a material under given conditions reflects the extent to which it concentrates electrostatic lines of flux. In technical terms, it is the ratio of the amount of electrical energy stored in a material by an applied voltage, relative to that stored in a vacuum...

of glass. Fluorine is highly electronegative and attracts the electrons in the lattice, lowering the polarizability of the material. Such silicon dioxide-fluoride is used in manufacture of integrated circuit

Integrated circuit

An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...

s as an insulator. High levels of fluorine doping lead to formation of volatile SiF₂O and such glass is then thermally unstable. Stable layers were achieved with dielectric constant down to about 3.5–3.7.

Amorphous metals

In the past, small batches of amorphous metal

Amorphous metal

An amorphous metal is a metallic material with a disordered atomic-scale structure. In contrast to most metals, which are crystalline and therefore have a highly ordered arrangement of atoms, amorphous alloys are non-crystalline...

s with high surface area configurations (ribbons, wires, films, etc.) have been produced through the implementation of extremely rapid rates of cooling. This was initially termed "splat cooling" by doctoral student W. Klement at Caltech, who showed that cooling rates on the order of millions of degrees per second is sufficient to impede the formation of crystals, and the metallic atoms become "locked into" a glassy state. Amorphous metal wires have been produced by sputtering molten metal onto a spinning metal disk. More recently a number of alloys have been produced in layers with thickness exceeding 1 millimeter. These are known as bulk metallic glasses (BMG). Liquidmetal Technologies

Liquidmetal

Liquidmetal and Vitreloy are commercial names of a series of amorphous metal alloys developed by a California Institute of Technology research team, now marketed by a firm that the team organized called Liquidmetal Technologies. Despite the name they are not liquid, but solid at room temperature,...

sell a number of zirconium-based BMGs. Batches of amorphous steel have also been produced that demonstrate mechanical properties far exceeding those found in conventional steel alloys.

In 2004, NIST researchers presented evidence that an isotropic non-crystalline metallic phase (dubbed "q-glass") could be grown from the melt. This phase is the first phase, or "primary phase," to form in the Al-Fe-Si system during rapid cooling. Interestingly, experimental evidence indicates that this phase forms by a first-order transition. Transmission electron microscopy

Transmission electron microscopy

Transmission electron microscopy is a microscopy technique whereby a beam of electrons is transmitted through an ultra thin specimen, interacting with the specimen as it passes through...

(TEM) images show that the q-glass nucleates from the melt as discrete particles, which grow spherically with a uniform growth rate in all directions. The diffraction pattern shows it to be an isotropic glassy phase. Yet there is a nucleation

Nucleation

Nucleation is the extremely localized budding of a distinct thermodynamic phase. Some examples of phases that may form by way of nucleation in liquids are gaseous bubbles, crystals or glassy regions. Creation of liquid droplets in saturated vapor is also characterized by nucleation...

barrier, which implies an interfacial discontinuity (or internal surface) between the glass and the melt.

Electrolytes

Electrolytes or molten salts are mixtures of different ion

Ion

An ion is an atom or molecule in which the total number of electrons is not equal to the total number of protons, giving it a net positive or negative electrical charge. The name was given by physicist Michael Faraday for the substances that allow a current to pass between electrodes in a...

s. In a mixture of three or more ionic species of dissimilar size and shape, crystallization can be so difficult that the liquid can easily be supercooled into a glass.
The best studied example is Ca_0.4K_0.6(NO₃)_1.4.

Aqueous solutions

Some aqueous solutions can be supercooled into a glassy state, for instance LiCl:RH₂O in the composition range 4<R<8.

Molecular liquids

A molecular liquid is composed of molecules that do not form a covalent network
but interact only through weak van der Waals force

Van der Waals force

In physical chemistry, the van der Waals force , named after Dutch scientist Johannes Diderik van der Waals, is the sum of the attractive or repulsive forces between molecules other than those due to covalent bonds or to the electrostatic interaction of ions with one another or with neutral...

s or through transient hydrogen bond

Hydrogen bond

A hydrogen bond is the attractive interaction of a hydrogen atom with an electronegative atom, such as nitrogen, oxygen or fluorine, that comes from another molecule or chemical group. The hydrogen must be covalently bonded to another electronegative atom to create the bond...

s.
Many molecular liquids can be supercooled into a glass; some are excellent glass formers that normally do not crystallize.

A widely known example is sugar glass

Sugar glass

Sugar glass is used to simulate glass in movies, photographs and plays. Although it is much less likely to cause injuries than real glass, it breaks convincingly, making it an excellent choice for stunts...

.

Under extremes of pressure and temperature solids may exhibit large structural and physical changes which can lead to polyamorphic

Polyamorphism

Polyamorphism is the ability of a substance to exist in several different amorphous modifications. It is analogous to the polymorphism of crystalline materials. Many amorphous substances can exist with different amorphous characteristics . However, polyamorphism requires two distinct amorphous...

phase transitions. In 2006 Italian scientists created an amorphous phase of carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

using extreme pressure. The substance was named amorphous carbonia

Amorphous carbonia

Amorphous carbonia, also called a-carbonia or a-CO2, is an exotic amorphous solid form of carbon dioxide that is analogous to amorphous silica glass. It was first made in the laboratory in 2006 by subjecting dry ice to high pressures , in a diamond anvil...

(a-CO₂) and exhibits an atomic structure resembling that of silica.

Colloidal glasses

Concentrated colloid

Colloid

A colloid is a substance microscopically dispersed evenly throughout another substance.A colloidal system consists of two separate phases: a dispersed phase and a continuous phase . A colloidal system may be solid, liquid, or gaseous.Many familiar substances are colloids, as shown in the chart below...

al suspensions may exhibit a distinct glass transition as function of particle concentration or density.

Glass-ceramics

Glass-ceramic

Glass-ceramics are polycrystalline material produced through controlled crystallization of base glass. Glass-ceramic materials share many properties with both glasses and ceramics...

materials share many properties with both non-crystalline glass and crystalline ceramics. They are formed as a glass, and then partially crystallized by heat treatment. For example, the microstructure of whiteware ceramics frequently contains both amorphous and crystalline phases. Crystalline grains are often embedded within a non-crystalline intergranular phase of grain boundaries. When applied to whiteware ceramics, vitreous means the material has an extremely low permeability

Permeability (fluid)

Permeability in fluid mechanics and the earth sciences is a measure of the ability of a porous material to allow fluids to pass through it.- Units :...

to liquids, often but not always water, when determined by a specified test regime.

The term mainly refers to a mix of lithium and aluminosilicate

Aluminosilicate

Aluminosilicate minerals are minerals composed of aluminium, silicon, and oxygen, plus countercations. They are a major component of kaolin and other clay minerals....

s which yields an array of materials with interesting thermomechanical properties. The most commercially important of these have the distinction of being impervious to thermal shock. Thus, glass-ceramics have become extremely useful for countertop cooking. The negative thermal expansion

Thermal expansion

coefficient (TEC) of the crystalline ceramic phase can be balanced with the positive TEC of the glassy phase. At a certain point (~70% crystalline) the glass-ceramic has a net TEC near zero. This type of glass-ceramic

Glass-ceramic

Glass-ceramics are polycrystalline material produced through controlled crystallization of base glass. Glass-ceramic materials share many properties with both glasses and ceramics...

exhibits excellent mechanical properties and can sustain repeated and quick temperature changes up to 1000 °C.

Structure

As in other amorphous solid

Amorphous solid

In condensed matter physics, an amorphous or non-crystalline solid is a solid that lacks the long-range order characteristic of a crystal....

s, the atomic structure of a glass lacks any long range translational periodicity

Translational symmetry

In geometry, a translation "slides" an object by a a: Ta = p + a.In physics and mathematics, continuous translational symmetry is the invariance of a system of equations under any translation...

. However, due to chemical bonding characteristics glasses do possess a high degree of short-range order with respect to local atomic polyhedra.

Glass versus supercooled liquid

In physics, the standard definition of a glass (or vitreous solid) is a solid formed by rapid melt quenching. However, the term glass is often used to describe any amorphous solid

Amorphous solid

In condensed matter physics, an amorphous or non-crystalline solid is a solid that lacks the long-range order characteristic of a crystal....

that exhibits a glass transition temperature T_g. If the cooling is sufficiently rapid (relative to the characteristic crystallization

Crystallization

Crystallization is the process of formation of solid crystals precipitating from a solution, melt or more rarely deposited directly from a gas. Crystallization is also a chemical solid–liquid separation technique, in which mass transfer of a solute from the liquid solution to a pure solid...

time) then crystallization is prevented and instead the disordered atomic configuration of the supercooled liquid is frozen into the solid state at T_g. Generally, the structure of a glass exists in a metastable state with respect to its crystalline form, although in certain circumstances, for example in atactic polymers, there is no crystalline analogue of the amorphous phase.

Glass is an amorphous solid. It exhibits an atomic structure close to that observed in the supercooled liquid phase but displays all the mechanical properties of a solid. The notion that glass flows to an appreciable extent over extended periods of time is not supported by empirical research or theoretical analysis (see viscosity of amorphous materials).

Some people consider glass to be a liquid due to its lack of a first-order phase transition

Phase transition

A phase transition is the transformation of a thermodynamic system from one phase or state of matter to another.A phase of a thermodynamic system and the states of matter have uniform physical properties....

where certain thermodynamic

Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics is a physical science that studies the effects on material bodies, and on radiation in regions of space, of transfer of heat and of work done on or by the bodies or radiation...

variables such as volume

Volume

Volume is the quantity of three-dimensional space enclosed by some closed boundary, for example, the space that a substance or shape occupies or contains....

, entropy

Entropy

Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...

and enthalpy

Enthalpy

Enthalpy is a measure of the total energy of a thermodynamic system. It includes the internal energy, which is the energy required to create a system, and the amount of energy required to make room for it by displacing its environment and establishing its volume and pressure.Enthalpy is a...

are discontinuous through the glass transition range. However, the glass transition

Glass transition

may be described as analogous to a second-order phase transition where the intensive thermodynamic variables such as the thermal expansivity

Thermal expansion

and heat capacity

Heat capacity

Heat capacity , or thermal capacity, is the measurable physical quantity that characterizes the amount of heat required to change a substance's temperature by a given amount...

are discontinuous. Despite this, the equilibrium theory of phase transformations does not entirely hold for glass, and hence the glass transition cannot be classed as one of the classical equilibrium phase transformations in solids.

Although the atom

Atom

The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...

ic structure of glass shares characteristics of the structure in a supercooled liquid, glass tends to behave as a solid below its glass transition temperature. A supercooled liquid behaves as a liquid, but it is below the freezing point

Freezing Point

Freezing Point is a news journal in the People's Republic of China which has been the subject of controversy over its criticism of Communist Party officials and the sympathetic ear it lent to a Chinese historian who had criticized official history textbooks...

of the material, and in some cases will crystallize almost instantly if a crystal is added as a core

Core

- Science and Academics :* Core , in mathematics, an object in group theory* Core , in mathematics, a subset of the domain of a closable operator* Core , in mathematics, the homomorphically minimal subgraph of a graph...

. The change in heat capacity at a glass transition and a melting transition

Melting point

The melting point of a solid is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depends on pressure and is usually specified at standard atmospheric pressure...

of comparable materials are typically of the same order of magnitude, indicating that the change in active degrees of freedom

Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry)

A degree of freedom is an independent physical parameter, often called a dimension, in the formal description of the state of a physical system...

is comparable as well. Both in a glass and in a crystal it is mostly only the vibration

Vibration

Vibration refers to mechanical oscillations about an equilibrium point. The oscillations may be periodic such as the motion of a pendulum or random such as the movement of a tire on a gravel road.Vibration is occasionally "desirable"...

al degrees of freedom that remain active, whereas rotational and translational

Translation (physics)

In physics, translation is movement that changes the position of an object, as opposed to rotation. For example, according to Whittaker:...

motion is arrested. This helps to explain why both crystalline and non-crystalline solids exhibit rigidity on most experimental time scales.

Behavior of antique glass

The observation that old windows are sometimes found to be thicker at the bottom than at the top is often offered as supporting evidence for the view that glass flows over a timescale of centuries. The assumption being that the glass was once uniform, but has flowed to its new shape, which is a property of liquid. However, this assumption is incorrect; once solidified, glass does not flow anymore. The reason for the observation is that in the past, when panes of glass were commonly made by glassblowers

Glassblowing

Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of a blowpipe, or blow tube...

, the technique used was to spin molten glass so as to create a round, mostly flat and even plate (the crown glass

Crown glass (window)

Crown glass was an early type of window glass. In this process, glass was blown into a "crown" or hollow globe. This was then transferred from the blowpipe to a pontil and then flattened by reheating and spinning out the bowl-shaped piece of glass into a flat disk by centrifugal force, up to 5 or...

process, described above). This plate was then cut to fit a window. The pieces were not, however, absolutely flat; the edges of the disk became thicker as the glass spun. When installed in a window frame, the glass would be placed thicker side down both for the sake of stability and to prevent water accumulating in the lead came

Came

A came is a divider bar used between small pieces of glass to make a larger glazing panel, sometimes referred to as leaded glass. This process is then referred to as "leading". Cames are mostly made of soft metals such as lead, zinc, copper or brass. They generally have an H-shaped cross section,...

s at the bottom of the window. Occasionally such glass has been found thinner side down or thicker on either side of the window's edge, the result of carelessness during installation.

Mass production of glass window panes in the early twentieth century caused a similar effect. In glass factories, molten glass was poured onto a large cooling table and allowed to spread. The resulting glass is thicker at the location of the pour, located at the center of the large sheet. These sheets were cut into smaller window panes with nonuniform thickness, typically with the location of the pour centred in one of the panes (known as "bull's-eyes") for decorative effect. Modern glass intended for windows is produced as float glass

Float glass

and is very uniform in thickness.

Several other points can be considered which contradict the "cathedral glass flow" theory:

Writing in the American Journal of Physics
American Journal of Physics
The American Journal of Physics is a monthly, peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Institute of Physics. The editor is Jan Tobochnik of Kalamazoo College.-Aims and scope:...

, physicist Edgar D. Zanotto
Edgar D. Zanotto
Edgar Dutra Zanotto is a Brazilian materials engineer from the Universidade Federal de São Carlos in Brazil...

states "...the predicted relaxation time
Relaxation time
In the physical sciences, relaxation usually means the return of a perturbed system into equilibrium.Each relaxation process can be characterized by a relaxation time τ...

for GeO₂ at room temperature
Room temperature
-Comfort levels:The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers has listings for suggested temperatures and air flow rates in different types of buildings and different environmental circumstances. For example, a single office in a building has an occupancy ratio per...

is 10³² years. Hence, the relaxation period (characteristic flow time) of cathedral glasses would be even longer." (10³² years is many times longer than the estimated age of the Universe
Age of the universe
The age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang posited by the most widely accepted scientific model of cosmology. The best current estimate of the age of the universe is 13.75 ± 0.13 billion years within the Lambda-CDM concordance model...

.)
If medieval glass has flowed perceptibly, then ancient Roman and Egyptian objects should have flowed proportionately more — but this is not observed. Similarly, prehistoric obsidian
Obsidian
Obsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed as an extrusive igneous rock.It is produced when felsic lava extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimum crystal growth...

blades should have lost their edge; this is not observed either (although obsidian may have a different viscosity
Viscosity
Viscosity is a measure of the resistance of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear or tensile stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness" or "internal friction". Thus, water is "thin", having a lower viscosity, while honey is "thick", having a higher viscosity...

from window glass).
If glass flows at a rate that allows changes to be seen with the naked eye after centuries, then the effect should be noticeable in antique telescopes. Any slight deformation in the antique telescopic lenses would lead to a dramatic decrease in optical performance, a phenomenon that is not observed.
There are many examples of centuries-old glass shelving which has not bent, even though it is under much higher stress from gravitational loads than vertical window glass.

The above does not apply to materials that have a glass transition temperature close to room temperature, such as certain plastics used in daily life like polystyrene

Polystyrene

Polystyrene ) also known as Thermocole, abbreviated following ISO Standard PS, is an aromatic polymer made from the monomer styrene, a liquid hydrocarbon that is manufactured from petroleum by the chemical industry...

and polypropylene

Polypropylene

Polypropylene , also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications including packaging, textiles , stationery, plastic parts and reusable containers of various types, laboratory equipment, loudspeakers, automotive components, and polymer banknotes...

. Over time, they may well show viscoelastic behaviour, and this is a serious concern when applying these materials in construction.

Optical properties

Glass is in widespread use largely due to the production of glass compositions that are transparent to visible wavelengths of light. In contrast, polycrystalline materials do not in general transmit visible light.
The individual crystallites may be transparent, but their facets (grain boundaries) reflect or scatter light resulting in diffuse reflection

Diffuse reflection

Diffuse reflection is the reflection of light from a surface such that an incident ray is reflected at many angles rather than at just one angle as in the case of specular reflection...

. Glass does not contain the internal subdivisions associated with grain boundaries in polycrystals and hence does not scatter light in the same manner as a polycrystalline material. The surface of a glass is often smooth since during glass formation the molecules of the supercooled liquid are not forced to dispose in rigid crystal geometries and can follow surface tension

Surface tension

Surface tension is a property of the surface of a liquid that allows it to resist an external force. It is revealed, for example, in floating of some objects on the surface of water, even though they are denser than water, and in the ability of some insects to run on the water surface...

, which imposes a microscopically smooth surface. These properties, which give glass its clearness, can be retained even if glass is partially light-absorbing i.e. colored.

Glass has the ability to refract

Refraction

Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its speed. It is essentially a surface phenomenon . The phenomenon is mainly in governance to the law of conservation of energy. The proper explanation would be that due to change of medium, the phase velocity of the wave is changed...

, reflect and transmit light following geometrical optics

Geometrical optics

Geometrical optics, or ray optics, describes light propagation in terms of "rays". The "ray" in geometric optics is an abstraction, or "instrument", which can be used to approximately model how light will propagate. Light rays are defined to propagate in a rectilinear path as far as they travel in...

, without scattering it, and it is used in the manufacture of lens

Lens (optics)

A lens is an optical device with perfect or approximate axial symmetry which transmits and refracts light, converging or diverging the beam. A simple lens consists of a single optical element...

es and windows. Common glass has a refraction index around 1.5. According to Fresnel equations

Fresnel equations

The Fresnel equations , deduced by Augustin-Jean Fresnel , describe the behaviour of light when moving between media of differing refractive indices...

, the reflectivity

Reflectivity

In optics and photometry, reflectivity is the fraction of incident radiation reflected by a surface. In general it must be treated as a directional property that is a function of the reflected direction, the incident direction, and the incident wavelength...

of a sheet of glass is about 4% per surface (at normal incidence), and its transmissivity

Transmissivity

Transmissivity may refer to:* Transmissivity , the rate which groundwater flows horizontally through an aquifer* Transmittance, in optics...

about 92%. Glass also finds application in optoelectronics

Optoelectronics

e.g. for light transmitting optical fibres.

Color

Color in glass may be obtained by addition of electrically charged ions (or color centers) that are homogeneously distributed, and by precipitation of finely dispersed particles (such as in photochromic glasses).
Ordinary soda-lime glass

Soda-lime glass

Soda-lime glass, also called soda-lime-silica glass, is the most prevalent type of glass, used for windowpanes, and glass containers for beverages, food, and some commodity items...

appears colorless to the naked eye when it is thin, although iron(II) oxide

Iron(II) oxide

Iron oxide, also known as ferrous oxide, is one of the iron oxides. It is a black-colored powder with the chemical formula . It consists of the chemical element iron in the oxidation state of 2 bonded to oxygen. Its mineral form is known as wüstite. Iron oxide should not be confused with rust,...

(FeO) impurities of up to 0.1 wt% produce a green tint which can be viewed in thick pieces or with the aid of scientific instruments. Further FeO and Cr₂O₃

Chromium(III) oxide

Chromium oxide is the inorganic compound of the formula Cr2O3. It is one of principal oxides of chromium and is used as a pigment. In nature, it occurs as the rare mineral eskolaite.-Structure and properties:...

additions may be used for the production of green bottles. Sulfur

Sulfur

Sulfur or sulphur is the chemical element with atomic number 16. In the periodic table it is represented by the symbol S. It is an abundant, multivalent non-metal. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with chemical formula S8. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow...

, together with carbon

Carbon

Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...

and iron salts, is used to form iron polysulfides and produce amber glass ranging from yellowish to almost black. A glass melt can also acquire an amber color from a reducing combustion atmosphere. Manganese dioxide can be added in small amounts to remove the green tint given by iron(II) oxide.

Glass art

From the 19th century, various types of fancy glass started to become significant branches of the decorative arts. Cameo glass

Cameo Glass

Cameo glass is a luxury form of glass art produced by etching and carving through fused layers of differently colored glass to produce designs, usually with white opaque glass figures and motifs on a dark-colored background...

was revived for the first time since the Romans, initially mostly used for pieces in a neo-classical

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

style. The Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

movement in particular made great use of glass, with René Lalique

René Lalique

René Jules Lalique was a French glass designer known for his creations of perfume bottles, vases, jewellery, chandeliers, clocks and automobile hood ornaments. He was born in the French village of Ay on 6 April 1860 and died 5 May 1945...

, Émile Gallé

Émile Gallé

Émile Gallé was a French artist who worked in glass, and is considered to be one of the major forces in the French Art Nouveau movement.- Biography :...

, and Daum of Nancy important names in the first French wave of the movement, producing colored vases and similar pieces, often in cameo glass, and also using lustre techniques. Louis Comfort Tiffany

Louis Comfort Tiffany

Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements...

in America specialized in secular stained glass, mostly of plant subjects, both in panels and his famous lamps. From the 20th century, some glass artists began to class themselves as in effect sculptors working in glass, and as part of the fine arts.

Several of the most common techniques for producing glass art include: blowing, kiln-casting, fusing, slumping, pate-de-verre, flame-working, hot-sculpting and cold-working. Cold work includes traditional stained glass work as well as other methods of shaping glass at room temperature. Glass can also be cut with a diamond saw, or copper wheels embedded with abrasives, and polished to give gleaming facets; the technique used in creating Waterford crystal

Waterford Crystal

Waterford Crystal is a trademark brand of crystal glassware, previously produced in Waterford, Ireland, though the factory there was shut down after the receivership of Waterford Wedgwood plc in early 2009...

. Art is sometimes etched into glass via the use of acid, caustic, or abrasive substances. Traditionally this was done after the glass was blown or cast. In the 1920s a new mould-etch process was invented, in which art was etched directly into the mould, so that each cast piece emerged from the mould with the image already on the surface of the glass. This reduced manufacturing costs and, combined with a wider use of colored glass, led to cheap glassware in the 1930s, which later became known as Depression glass. As the types of acids used in this process are extremely hazardous, abrasive methods have gained popularity.

Another technique is devitrification

Devitrification

Devitrification is the opposite of vitrification, i.e., the process of crystallization in a formerly crystal-free glass. The term is derived from the Latin vitreus, meaning glassy and transparent.-Devitrification in glass art:...

.

Objects made out of glass include not only traditional objects such as vessels (bowl

Bowl (vessel)

A bowl is a common open-top container used in many cultures to serve food, and is also used for drinking and storing other items. They are typically small and shallow, although some, such as punch bowls and salad bowls, are larger and often intended to serve many people.Bowls have existed for...

s, vase

Vase

The vase is an open container, often used to hold cut flowers. It can be made from a number of materials including ceramics and glass. The vase is often decorated and thus used to extend the beauty of its contents....

s, bottle

Bottle

A bottle is a rigid container with a neck that is narrower than the body and a "mouth". By contrast, a jar has a relatively large mouth or opening. Bottles are often made of glass, clay, plastic, aluminum or other impervious materials, and typically used to store liquids such as water, milk, soft...

s, and other containers), paperweights

Paperweight collecting

Fine glass paperweights, are widely produced, collected and appreciated as works of art, and are often exhibited in museums as examples of fine glass art.They are made entirely of glass by sole artisans, or factories, usually in limited editions...

, marbles

Marbles

A marble is a small spherical toy usually made from glass, clay, steel, or agate. These balls vary in size. Most commonly, they are about ½ inch in diameter, but they may range from less than ¼ inch to over 3 inches , while some art glass marbles fordisplay purposes are over 12 inches ...

, bead

Bead

A bead is a small, decorative object that is usually pierced for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under to over in diameter. A pair of beads made from Nassarius sea snail shells, approximately 100,000 years old, are thought to be the earliest known examples of jewellery. Beadwork...

s, but an endless range of sculpture and installation art

Installation art

Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...

as well. Colored glass is often used, though sometimes the glass is painted, innumerable examples exist of the use of stained glass.

Museums

Apart from historical collections in general museums, modern works of art in glass can be seen in a variety of museums, including the Chrysler Museum, the Museum of Glass

Museum of Glass

The Museum of Glass is a museum dedicated to the medium of glass art located in Tacoma, Washington. It is not to be confused with the various other Museums of Glass, such as the one in Corning, New York, as the museum focuses on Contemporary and Pacific Northwest glass-art.The museum, the...

in Tacoma, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, and Corning Museum of Glass

Corning Museum of Glass

The Corning Museum of Glass, in Corning, New York, explores every facet of glass, including art, history, culture, science and technology, craft, and design....

, in Corning, NY

Corning (city), New York

Corning is a city in Steuben County, New York, United States, on the Chemung River. The population was 10,842 at the 2000 census. It is named for Erastus Corning, an Albany financier and railroad executive who was an investor in the company that developed the community.- Overview :The city of...

, which houses the world's largest collection of glass art and history, with more than 45,000 objects in its collection.

The Harvard Museum of Natural History

Harvard Museum of Natural History

The Harvard Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.It has three parts:* the Harvard University Herbaria* the Museum of Comparative Zoology* the Harvard Mineralogical Museum....

has a collection of extremely detailed models of flowers made of painted glass. These were lampworked

Lampworking

Lampworking is a type of glasswork that uses a gas fueled torch to melt rods and tubes of clear and colored glass. Once in a molten state, the glass is formed by blowing and shaping with tools and hand movements. It is also known as flameworking or torchworking, as the modern practice no longer...

by Leopold Blaschka and his son Rudolph, who never revealed the method he used to make them. The Blaschka Glass Flowers

Glass Flowers

The Glass Flowers, formally The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants, is a famous collection of highly-realistic glass botanical models at the Harvard Museum of Natural History at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts....

are still an inspiration to glassblowers today.

External links

Glass Encyclopedia – A comprehensive guide to all types of antique and collectable glass, with information, pictures and references
The Canadian Museum of Civilization – The Story of Glass Making in Canada
Corning Museum of Glass
"How Your Glass Ware Is Made" by George W. Waltz, February 1951, Popular Science

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.